Departments: Correspondence

Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what guidance his Department follows on the maximum time taken to respond to hon. Members' correspondence; and what performance against that target was in the most recent period for which figures are available.

Derek Twigg: I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Edward Miliband) on 22 October 2007,  Official Report, column 45W.

Governance of Britain

Nicholas Winterton: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what recent representations he has received on 'The Governance of Britain', Cm 7170.

Michael Wills: I have had a number of meetings with individuals and stakeholders and my Department has received correspondence from a variety of interested parties following the publication of the Green Paper the "Governance of Britain".

Regional Government: Ministers

Mark Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many staff support each of the Ministers for the Regions in their regional roles, broken down by grade; what the engagements of each Minister were from the date of their appointment to 1 October 2007; over what budget for 2007-08 for each region each Minister has control; what each Minister's regional responsibilities are; and what the cost is of the staff of each Minister.

Parmjit Dhanda: The role of Regional Ministers is set out in paragraphs 115 to 118 in "The Governance of Britain" and their responsibilities include:
	Advising the Secretaries of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and Communities and Local Government on the approval of regional strategies
	Representing regional interests in the formulation of central Government policy relevant to economic growth and sustainable development in areas that have not been devolved to the regional development agencies (RDAs)
	Facilitating a joined up approach across Government Departments and agencies to enable effective delivery of the single regional strategy
	Promoting achievement of the Government's Regional Economic Performance objective
	Championing the region at high level events and with regard to high profile projects, and
	Representing the Government with regard to central Government policy at regional select committee hearings and at parliamentary debates focused specifically on the region.
	Regional Ministers do not have control of a specific budget. Alongside their departmental private offices, Government offices also provide support for the Regional Ministers. This varies from one to 3.5 full-time equivalent staff, across the grade scale, depending on the requirements of the Minister at the time.
	Regional Ministers are currently developing a forward plan of events for the coming year. From the date of their appointment up until 1 October they have attended a variety of engagements including, meetings with the heads of regional development agencies, regional assemblies, local government and the business sectors outbreaks of foot and mouth disease and the flooding that affected many of the regions and other region-specific issues.

Religion

David Gauke: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what her criteria are for assessing the effect of the activities of  (a) Muslim and  (b) other community organisations on tackling extremism and promoting shared values.

Parmjit Dhanda: As stated in the PSA 26 ("reduce the risk to the UK and interests from international terrorism"), the objective of the PREVENT strand of the Government's counter-terrorism strategy is to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting violent extremism.
	Within this, the Department leads on work to enable local communities to be able to challenge the robustly ideas of those extremists who seek to undermine our way of life, set out in the Preventing Violent Extremism Action Plan published in April 2007. Key to this is the building of strong communities, confident in themselves, open to others and resilient to violent extremism.

Renewable Energy: Greater London

Gregory Barker: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government on what date the London Borough of Merton adopted its planning rule requiring onsite renewable energy; and how many appeals there have been by developers against decisions under that rule since its adoption.

Yvette Cooper: The policy that
	"all new non residential developments above a threshold of l,000 sq m will be expected to incorporate renewable energy production equipment to provide at least 10 per cent. of predicted energy requirements"
	was adopted by the London borough of Merton in October 2003 in its Unitary Development Plan. Since the Plan was adopted three appeals relating to major developments have been received by the Planning Inspectorate following refusals by the London borough of Merton. According to our records none of these appeals were against decisions under the on-site renewable's policy.

Thames Gateway

Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what response she has made to the recommendation made by the Williams Commission in its report, Quality First: The Commission on Design of Affordable Housing in the Thames Gateway, that the Planning Inspectorate should send a stronger message to developers and local authorities that low quality in the design of housing schemes is a legitimate basis upon which planning applications should be refused.

Iain Wright: The independent report by the Williams Commission was commissioned by the Housing Corporation and as such the Government do not intend to make a formal response. However, the report makes a very valuable contribution to the debate on urban design and affordable housing and the Department has considered the recommendations aimed at central Government carefully.
	The planning system already allows for planning applications to be turned down on design grounds. Planning inspectors take decisions on planning appeals in accordance with design policies in the development plan and published Government policy. The Department supports the work that the Planning Inspectorate (with help from the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment) are already doing to promote good design and ensuring their inspectors are fully trained on design issues. This is supported by guidance including By Design: Urban Design in the Planning System.
	The Government have set out its design policy in planning policy statement 3: Housing (November 2006). The Housing Green Paper (July 2007) set out the next steps: that we will work on design quality metrics to ensure that we have sufficiently robust and flexible measurement systems for design quality, to ensure that local authorities are able to monitor progress in achieving higher quality, and to continue to raise the design skills levels of key professionals.

Departments: Public Expenditure

Andrew Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will break down by subheading the £8.2 billion efficiency savings identified in the Comprehensive Spending Review for his Department; how each saving will be delivered; and how much money will be released by each.

Ben Bradshaw: The Department will publish a value for money delivery agreement in December. This will set out the approach to delivering and monitoring value for money gains in the national health service for 2008-09 to 2010-11.
	The NHS Operating Framework will also support delivery of value for money in the NHS. The Government are committed to creating a more locally led, innovative health service, that put the needs and wishes of patients, staff and the public at the heart of care. Given this increased local emphasis, it is right that the Department supports the NHS locally in determining the most suitable value for money opportunities for local health communities, without imposing solutions from the centre. The delivery agreement will therefore set out both the value for money opportunities which the Department can deliver on behalf of the NHS and the Department's role in supporting the NHS to deliver value for money locally, without setting a prescriptive breakdown of individual value for money activities.

Departments: Public Expenditure

Andrew Lansley: To ask the Secretary of State for Health in which areas funding in his Department's budget has been ring-fenced; and what the  (a) amount ring-fenced and  (b) purpose of the ring-fence was in each case.

Ben Bradshaw: The Department has ring-fenced revenue grants for the following reasons in 2007-08:
	AIDS Support £16.5 million: The Public Health White Paper "Choosing Health" highlighted sexual health as a priority area for action, and the ring-fencing encourages spending in accordance with that priority.
	Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMUS)—£90.5 million: The purpose of the CAMHS Grant is to enable local authorities, in consultation with local health organisations, to deliver a comprehensive CAMHS in line with the Department's National Service Framework for Children and the cross-Government Every Child Matters programme. The ring-fencing is designed to ensure that the money is spent on improving CAMHS, as provision is geographically variable and improvements have been made from a low baseline.
	Mental health—£132.9 million: ringfenced to encourage spending on mental health services, considered historically to have received comparatively low investment.
	Individual Budget Pilots—£6 million: The grant is paid to 13 councils to support their work to pilot the individual budget programme. Ring-fenced in view of this pilot status to ensure that spending on the area occurs to inform the outcomes.
	Partnerships for Older People Pilots—£40 million: enables councils to establish joint pilot projects with their health and other partners to deliver and evaluate approaches which will create a sustainable shift in resources and culture away from crisis-based institutionalised care towards 'preventative' care for older people within their own homes and communities: ringfenced given its pilot status.

Health Services: Standards

Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what guidance his Department provides to commissioners of healthcare services for assessing the predicted health needs of the populations they serve.

Ben Bradshaw: Assessing need is fundamental to improving the health and wellbeing outcomes of local populations. The Department is committed to ensuring that local services reflect the needs of their populations, leading to communities that are healthier, with services delivered in settings that are most convenient to the people that use them.
	To help commissioners understand the needs of their populations, the Department has provided the patients at risk of re-hospitalisation tool which systematically predicts people at risk of repeated emergency admission to hospital and the combined predictive model which stratifies risk across the whole population.
	The Department is also working with the NHS to set out a vision for world class commissioning, and the organisational competencies that will be needed to achieve this vision. These competencies will address the importance of understanding and predicting the health needs of the local population, and the techniques that will achieve this.
	The Department is planning to publish the vision and competencies in early December. This will be followed early next year by a support and development framework to help primary care trusts achieve the vision for world class commissioning.
	The forthcoming duty of Joint Strategic Needs Assessment, which should come into effect April 2008, will ensure that the needs of local people are comprehensively and systematically assessed. The Commissioning Framework for Health and Wellbeing, which was out for consultation earlier this year, has already gone a long way towards describing what questions commissioners should ask to understand the needs of the communities they serve. Forthcoming guidance on Joint Strategic Needs Assessment from the Department will clarify the approach commissioners can take.

NHS: Finance

John Grogan: To ask the Secretary of State for Health 
	(1)  what assessment he has made of the reduction in NHS expenditure arising from the two-year price freeze on products in part 1X of the drug tariff;
	(2)  what assessment he has made of the impact of his Department's proposals for Part IX of the drug tariff on the workloads of specialist nurses;
	(3)  if he will publish an impact assessment on the proposed changes to storma and incontinence appliances in Part IX of the drug tariff.

Dawn Primarolo: holding answer 23 October 2007
	The review of the arrangements under Part IX of the Drug Tariff for the provision of stoma and incontinence appliances—and related services—in primary care is ongoing. A further consultation, "Arrangements under Part IX of the Drug Tariff for the provision of stoma and incontinence appliances—and related services—to Primary Care. Revised Proposals", was published on 6 September 2007 and closes on 28 December 2007. Copies of the consultation have been placed in the Library and it is also available on the Department's website at:
	http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Consultations/Liveconsultations/DH_078135
	A partial regulatory impact assessment was published with the previous consultation that was published in November 2006. A copy has been placed in the Library.
	An impact assessment will be produced as part of the Department's final recommendation.
	Some dispensing contractors employ specialist nurses who visit patients. The most recent consultation, "Arrangements under Part IX of the Drug Tariff for the provision of stoma and incontinence appliances—and related services—to Primary Care. Revised Proposals", proposes that these dispensing contractors should be remunerated for providing this service. This is in keeping with one of the Department's stated objectives: maintain, and where applicable improve, the current quality of care to patients and provide a consistent level of care.
	In meeting this objective, the Department does not anticipate any impact on the workload of the specialist nurses employed directly by the national health service.
	The current spend on stoma and incontinence appliances by the NHS is about £200 million a year. Reimbursement prices for Part IX items are usually subject to an annual increase.
	The Department froze the levels of reimbursement in April 2006. The value of this 18-month freeze is estimated to be £7-8 million. However, it should be noted that this cost avoidance has been offset by the additional cost of an increased number of Part IX prescription items dispensed in the same period.

Royston Hospital

Oliver Heald: To ask the Secretary of State for Health 
	(1)  what plans there are for the future of Royston Hospital;
	(2)  what plans his Department has to develop Royston Hospital in the same way as Hertford County Hospital; and if he will make a statement;
	(3)  what estimate the NHS has made of the number of patients in the catchment area for Hertford County Hospital;
	(4)  what assessment the NHS has made of the number of patients in the catchment area for Royston Hospital; to what extent this includes patients from Cambridge and Essex in addition to Hertfordshire patients; and if he will make a statement.

Ivan Lewis: This is a matter for the local national health service. It is the responsibility of primary care trusts (PCTs) to ensure that NHS services provided locally meet the needs of the populations that they serve.
	We understand that the two Hertfordshire PCT have recently concluded a formal consultation on the future of health services in Hertfordshire as a whole. The next phase is for the project team to collate and analyse all the comments received in response to the consultation. The findings will be presented to both PCT boards in December this year.

Census

David Amess: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what preparatory work has begun in  (a) Southend on Sea,  (b) Essex and  (c) England for the 2011 census; what representations he has received since 2005 on that census; and if he will make a statement.

Angela Eagle: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.
	 Letter from Colin Mowl, dated 24 October 2007:
	The National Statistician and Registrar General for England and Wales has been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question asking what preparatory work has begun in (a) Southend-on-Sea, (b) Essex and (c) England for the 2011 Census; what representations he has received since 2005 on that Census. I am replying in her absence. (159648)
	Preparations for the 2011 Census in England and Wales include:-
	Consultations earned out in 2002-2003 on the need for a Census;
	Formal consultation launched in May 2005 on the content of the. .2011 Census;
	Publication in March 2006 of approximately 2,000 responses to the consultation on content;
	Formal consultation on ethnicity, identity, language and religion launched in December 2006;
	Publication of summary of responses to the consultation on ethnicity, identity, language and religion October 2007;
	Programme of individual question development;
	Small-scale tests of questions;
	Development of the 2007 Test questionnaire;
	Launch in September 2005 through the Official Journal of the European Union of the procurement process for the contract to support the 2011 Census, covering
	Printing of questionnaires, information leaflets and envelopes;
	Data capture;
	Internet capture/coding;
	Questionnaire tracking;
	Operational intelligence support;
	Contact centres.
	Development of new procedures;
	Postal delivery of questionnaires;
	Development of a robust list of addresses/households;
	On-the-ground address checking operation before census;
	Internet collection option;
	Post-back to a single central location;
	Central questionnaire response tracking and fast receipting;
	Two-way field communication systems; and
	More effective and flexible field operation.
	2007 Census Test held on 13 May covering 100,000 households within five local authorities—Bath and North East Somerset, Camden, Carmarthenshire, Liverpool and Stoke-on-Trent Test Evaluation report to be published in early 2008;
	Formal consultation on Small Area Geography launched in November 2006;
	Address Register evaluation;
	Planning for Rehearsal in 2009; and
	Planning engagement with stakeholders including an increased role for local authorities and local authority chief executives.
	We recognise that for the engagement to work really effectively it will be important to get the support of local authority chief executives, particularly in view of the financial implications associated with Census results. We are working with a sub group of the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE) Electoral Matters Panel, of which the Chief Executive for Southend-on Sea, Robert Tinlin is a member. Mr Tinlin wrote to the National Statistician in April asking how we could best work together to achieve a successful Census and in her reply the National Statistician suggested that after we had done some evaluation of the Test, a meeting should be arranged between Ian Cope, the Census Director and Mr Tinlin. They were scheduled to meet in September at the next meeting of the SOLACE Electoral Matters Panel Census sub-group but I understand the meeting has been postponed until 13 November.
	Specific areas identified for working in partnership with local authorities include:
	Address Register development to ensure fullest coverage;
	Enumeration intelligence for targeting of delivery methods and follow-up resources;
	Identifying and developing Community Liaison contacts;
	Recruitment and logistical support; and
	Publicity.
	We recognise that not all local authorities would have the same resources to commit to working with us in all these areas, but we are keen to explore the potential for working with both Southend-on-Sea Borough Council and Essex County Council.
	A draft Local Authority Engagement Strategy is currently being reviewed by the Local Government Association and the Department for Communities and Local Government.
	Representations concerning the 2011 Census have been primarily in the form of responses to widespread consultations carried out since 2005 on the topic content of the Census, including in particular ethnicity, identity, language and religion, and the future policy on the use of small area geographies for National Statistics. Other than the responses to the consultation, some 650 pieces of correspondence have been dealt with since 2005. These have focused primarily on the topics and questions to be included in the Census, confidentiality, and from local authorities enquiring about our plans for enumeration of their areas.

Sure Start Programme: Standards

Maria Miller: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what targets and indicators for Sure Start are contained in the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR)  (a) 2004 and  (b) 2007; what steps he plans to take in respect of these targets following recent performance against them; what progress he expects to be achieved by the end of the CSR 2004 reporting period; and if he will make a statement.

Beverley Hughes: The Comprehensive Spending Review 2004 included four targets for Sure Start. They are:
	 PSA1
	To improve children's communication, social and emotional development so that by 2008 53 per cent. of children reach a good level of development at the end of the Foundation Stage and reduce inequalities between the level of development achieved by children in the 30 per cent. most disadvantaged areas and the rest of England from 16 per cent. to 12 per cent. A good level of development was defined for this measure as achieving six points in each of the Personal, Social and Emotional Development and Communication Language and Literacy Scales.
	During 2005 and 2006, the major focus was on improving the accuracy and consistency of the assessments against the FSP being undertaken in every local authority, through a programme of rigorous moderation assessments against the Foundation Stage Profile. It is encouraging that we are starting to see results move in the right direction after these improvements with a small increase in 2007 from 44 per cent. to 45 per cent. of children achieving a good level of development.
	The gap between the most disadvantaged areas and the rest remained around 17 per cent. However this shows that the performance of the most disadvantaged groups has kept pace with improvements for the rest. We know that it will take time for our policies and programmes to have full impact but believe that investing for the long—term is essential if we are to improve the life chances of the most disadvantaged children.
	The Government are committed to investing in early education—we have invested over £21 billion in the early years, and will spend an additional £4 billion in the next spending period to give all children the best start in life and to narrow the gap between the most disadvantaged and the rest. That is why we have established over 1,500 Sure Start Children's Centres in the most disadvantaged areas in the country, and are committed to having one in every community by 2010. We have also provided guidance to children's centres on how they can reach out to their most vulnerable and disadvantaged children.
	 PSA2A
	As a contribution to reducing the proportion of children living in households where no one is working, the target is by 2008 to increase the stock of Ofsted-registered child care by 10 per cent.
	This target has already been met. A stock of 1.21 million registered child care places was necessary to meet the target of 10 per cent growth above the March 2004 baseline. In June 2007, there was a stock of 1.28 million registered child care places, which represented an increase of 17 per cent. from March 2004.
	The target has been met but work is required to ensure that a sufficient level of stock is maintained. The main focus now is on sustainability of child care, and improving quality, accessibility and affordability, rather than the creation of additional places. The new duty on local authorities to complete assessments of the sufficiency of child care by March 2008 will help them identify unmet need, in advance of their duty to secure sufficient child care for working parents which comes into force the following month.
	 PSA2B
	The target is to increase the take-up of formal child care by children in lower income working families by 120,000 by March 2008.
	We are currently unable to assess performance as the necessary data will not be available until next year. However, we are working closely with delivery partners on key levers to achieve the target which include:
	Increasing take up of the working tax credit (WTC) where take up among potentially eligible groups is low;
	Jobcentre Plus promoting child care as part of packages to get people back into work;
	The role of children's centres and extended schools in providing child care in disadvantaged areas and promoting its take up through outreach;
	Improving take up of the three and four-year-old free entitlement, where overall take up is high, but significantly lower among lower income families;
	Maximising the impact of specific initiatives such as the free entitlement pilot for two-year-olds and the London Childcare Affordability Programme.
	 PSA2C
	The PSA2C target to introduce a light touch approval scheme, with 3,500 new approved carers by March 2008 was met in December 2006.
	The Comprehensive Spending Review 2007 includes two targets directly related to outcomes for children aged 5:
	 PSA10
	To increase the proportion of young children achieving a good level of development at the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage by an additional 4 percentage points from 2008 results, by 2011. A good level of development is defined for this measure by a total points score of at least 78 across all 13 Early Years Foundation Stage Profile scales—with at least six in each of the communication, language and literacy and personal, social and emotional development scales.
	 PSA11
	To reduce the percentage gap between the mean average performance of the lowest achieving 20 per cent. and the median score of all children by 3 percentage points from 2008 results, by 2011.

Education: Prisons

David Willetts: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills how many prisoners in British prisons obtained  (a) level 2 qualifications,  (b) level 3 qualifications,  (c) level 4 qualifications and  (d) a university degree during their stay in prison in each year since 1997.

David Lammy: The information requested was not collected centrally.
	The introduction of the Offender Learning and Skills Service (OLASS) from 31 July 2006, means that data on individual offender achievement will increasingly become available for adults, young offenders and juveniles in custody, in England. Data in the format requested will be available from spring 2008 for the academic year 2006/07. Separate arrangements are made for Welsh and Scottish establishments.
	Her Majesty's Prison Service annual reports record the following basic skills achievements at level 2:
	
		
			  Financial year  Number 
			 2001-02 16,133 
			 2002-03 15,145 
			 2003-04 13,338 
			 2004-05 14,759 
			 2005-06 12,381 
		
	
	Data from the Open University shows the following awards to serving prisoners:
	
		
			  Open University 
			  Academic year  Certificate awards  Diploma awards  Unclassified degree  Honours degree  Taught masters  Total 
			 2001/02 14 8 5 11 2 40 
			 2002/03 23 16 5 6 1 51 
			 2003/04 52 11 4 6 0 73 
			 2004/05 90 9 9 7 1 116 
			 2005/06 94 23 11 11 1 140

Higher Education

Robert Wilson: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills what proportion of university students have parents in the  (a) A,  (b) B,  (c) C,  (d) C1,  (e) D and  (f) E social groupings.

Bill Rammell: The latest available information is shown in the table. The figures include acceptances on full-time undergraduate courses in the academic year 2006/07 for students who applied through the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS). They do not include acceptances on full-time undergraduate courses for students who applied directly to higher education institutions or part-time undergraduate courses.
	
		
			  English domiciled acceptances to full-time undergraduate courses by National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (NS-SEC)( 1) , academic year 2006/07 
			   Number  Percentage( 2)  
			 1. Higher managerial and professional occupations 48,529 22.7 
			 2. Lower managerial and professional occupations 66,823 31.2 
			 3. Intermediate occupations 30,649 14.3 
			 4. Small employers and own account workers 15,926 7.4 
			 5. Lower supervisory and technical occupations 10,030 4.7 
			 6. Semi-routine occupations 29,309 13.7 
			 7. Routine occupations 12,577 5.9 
			 Total known 213,843 100.0 
			
			 8. Unknown 75,386 — 
			 Total 289,229 — 
			 (1) NS-SEC was introduced in 2002/03 and replaced the previous classification based on six social class groups. (2) Based on those whose NS-SEC is known.  Source: Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS). 
		
	
	The latest data for English domiciled students applying for entry in 2007 show that the proportion of students from lower socio-economic groups increased slightly compared to the corresponding data in 2006.

Students: Finance

Robert Wilson: To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills what the cost of student grants was in each of the last 15 years; and what the estimated cost is for each of the next three years.

Bill Rammell: The available data are given in the table.
	
		
			  Expenditure on student grants( 1)  for maintenance: this excludes tuition fee remission grant and special grants for vulnerable students. Students domiciled in England and Wales academic years 1992/93 to 2004/05. Students domiciled in England academic years 2005/06 to 2006/07 
			  Academic year  Expenditure (£ million) 
			 1992/93(2) 1,046 
			 1993/94(2) 1,202 
			 1994/95(2) 1,159 
			 1995/96(2) 1,075 
			 1996/97(2) 948 
			 1997/98(2) 932 
			 1998/99(2) 617 
			 1999/2000(2) 347 
			 2000/01(2) 119 
			 2001/02(2) 31 
			 2002/03(2) n/a 
			 2003/04(2) n/a 
			   
			 2004/05(3) 97 
			 2005/06(3) 168 
			 2006/07(4) 462 
			 (1) Data do not include tuition fee remission grants or supplementary grants and allowances; eg for students with disabilities, students with dependents, single parent students, those incurring certain travel costs and those who have recently left care. (2) Data prior to 2004/05 refers to Mandatory Award scheme students. These arrangements applied to students who entered HE up to 1997/98 who received support for maintenance through means-tested grants. Data were not collected for mandatory award students in 2002/03 and subsequent years because of the low numbers of students involved. These figures are on an England and Wales basis. (3) In 2004/05 and 2005/06, data refer to Student Support Scheme Students (students entering from 1998/99 who received support for living costs mainly through loans which are partly income-assessed) in receipt of a full or part Higher Education Grant (HEG) which was introduced for new students entering from 2004/05. 2004/05 data covers England and Wales, 2005/06 covers England. Separate England data are not available for earlier years. (4) The 2006/07 figure is provisional England data covering the HEG and the new Maintenance Grant and Special Support Grant introduced in September 2006.  Sources: DFES F503G survey of local authorities, Student Loans Company (SLC) 
		
	
	Expenditure provision for student grants for maintenance in financial year 2007-08 for English domiciled students is £568 million. It is not possible to provide a FY 2007-08 figure on an academic year basis.
	Detail on specific areas of funding for the Spending Review 2007 period is not available at present, but will be available in the near future.
	The drop in the number of students receiving a grant from 1998/99 onwards reflects the fact that maintenance grants were replaced by loans for new students, therefore only existing students continued to receive a maintenance grant.
	The large rise in the figures shown for 2005/06 and 2006/07 reflects the fact that the Higher Education Grant was introduced in 2004/05 for new students and therefore covered two cohorts in 2005/06. In 2006/07 the HEG was replaced by the Maintenance Grant and Special Support Grant.